World: The Legacy of Joshua

JUST as David Ben-Gurion has been compared to a modern Moses who led his
people to the Promised Land, so Levi Eshkol made a credible Joshua as
Ben-Gurion's successor in the premiership of Israel. Chosen in 1963 for
what many believed to be a transitional tenure, Eshkol presided over
the defeat of Israel's enemies and its coming of age as an industrial
state. When he died last week at 73, he left behind a government more
unified than at any time in Israel's 21-year history, and one that
rules over a territory three times as large as he inherited.